


The Hand Dealt

by Alley_Skywalker



Category: Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fill, mentions of dolokhov/anatole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 09:58:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13408824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/pseuds/Alley_Skywalker
Summary: Helene isn't thinking about the future. Dolokhov can't quite help it.





	The Hand Dealt

“Come back to bed,” Helene says, pulling herself up into a sitting position and leaning against the pillows. She eyes Dolokhov, who is sat on the windowsill with the window open and a pipe in one hand. “And close the window, it’s cold.”

“I thought you were asleep.” He looks over at her over his shoulder and smirks. “Anatole always falls asleep after.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “We’re not exactly the same you know.”

“I never would have guessed.”

She makes a swiping gesture with her hand. “You’re too far away. I can’t even reprimand you properly.”

“You could always come over here.”

“And freeze?”

“It’s not that cold.”

“It’s snowing, Dolokhov.”

He laughs, watching the way her pretty lips fold up in a pout. He wonders if he could wake up to this every morning and go to bed to it every night and not get bored, like so many married men seem to eventually get bored of their wives. He wonders if the wonder of it all is in its forbidden nature: she’s too smart to marry him, too ambitious to throw her life away o an elopement. He likes that about her in the same sort of way he likes Anatole’s foolishness.

It’s amusing. It’s endearing.

It’s not a good basis for a marriage.

Dolokhov closes the window and puts out his pipe. He crosses the room and gets back into bed with her. It’s eight in the evening, middle of May. He’s twenty-two and she’s nineteen.

They’ve got at least another two hours before her parents come back from their party; another two weeks before he has to leave for a deployment; probably another two good years before he has to decide whether whoever she marries is worth a duel. He can work with those odds.

Dolokhov kisses her and Helene arches eagerly into the kiss. She’s not thinking of those things at all.


End file.
